Finding the best career for you involves multiple different factors: what you’re interested in, what you’re good at, what industry you want to work in, what kind of company you want to work for — the list goes on. One part of the job search that’s often overlooked is how your personality fits the role. Are you more collaborative? Do you prefer independent projects? Don’t know? Don’t worry! We’ve made a personality career quiz for you.
Why Should I Take a Personality Career Quiz?
A personality career quiz can help you understand what roles you’re best suited for based on your specific characteristics. While a career aptitude test can help you understand what careers might be best for you based on your strengths, that’s just one aspect of your career; your personality also affects how you succeed in the workplace. Work is about much more than the literal tasks you do — it’s who you work with, how you work with them, your audience, your goals — which all have to do with personality.
“While skills and experience are certainly key factors, personality provides insight into someone’s inherent preferences, strengths, and soft skills that reflect how they operate best,” says Matthew Warzel, certified professional resume writer and former Fortune 500 recruiter. “Traits like comfort with collaboration versus individual work, tolerance for stress or pressure, and preference for concrete versus abstract tasks all correlate to certain career families.”
For example, I find I’m more of an introvert and prefer independent work, which aligns well with my writing career, where I spend a lot of solo time drafting articles. My coworkers who work in sales, however, thrive when talking to new people, which makes them a great fit for their client-facing roles.
Personality is also a big part of whether you’ll be happy with your job.
“When someone’s personality type is a good fit for the demands and culture of their job, they will generally be more motivated and engaged,” Warzel says. “Having self-awareness of personality via a well-designed career quiz can help match someone to a line of work where they will be happy and productive on a daily basis, less likely to burn out, and find opportunities to apply skills that play to their strengths.
Why Should I Take Forage’s Personality Career Quiz?
Most personality careers quizzes out there assess your personality by asking about your likes and dislikes, specifically as they relate to what you like and don’t like about different job responsibilities.
While you might be able to imagine whether or not you’d like a specific task, this can be difficult if you’ve never had any professional experience. For example, how are you supposed to know if you’d like programming if you’ve never tried it — or don’t even fully understand what the term “programming” means?
That’s why Forage has created a simple, straightforward personality career quiz that requires no outside knowledge of careers or job responsibilities. Instead, our quiz focuses on questions that shed insight into:
- Your hobbies
- Your goals
- How you identify yourself
- How others identify you
- How you respond in everyday situations
- How you interact with others
These factors, among others, can help us understand your personality, recommend careers based on those results, then share more information about what your career options mean.
Personality Career Quiz for Students
Ready to take a personality career quiz? It’s completely free — you’ll just need to sign up to get your results!
What Should I Do With My Personality Career Quiz Results?
The point of a personality career quiz is to show you what types of jobs might best suit your personality: your interests, behaviors, and how you interact with others. When we’re first exploring careers, we might not think about a job beyond the day-to-day responsibilities. Yet there’s so much more that makes a job what it is — including how the role fits within the team, department, and company, and how you’re expected to get your day-to-day work done.
Personality career quiz results can give you a stepping stone to holistically look at your career options and pick one that’s right for you.
So, you’ve gotten some career suggestions based on your personality type — what’s next?
Start Exploring Your Results
There are tons of ways to research your results. You can explore specific careers online by reading articles on career paths or taking Forage job simulations to experience a day in the life working in that role. You can also search for careers by your personality type. For example, if you’re a “thinker,” you might search for “careers for detail-oriented people.” If you’re a “socializer,” you might look for “careers for a people person.”
Career Quiz Result | Industry | Forage Job Simulation to Try |
Thinker | Accounting | KPMG Career Catalyst Program: Audit |
Thinker | Data | BCG Data Science |
Thinker | Insurance | AIG Underwriting |
Socializer | Sales | Red Bull On-Premise Sales |
Socializer | Consulting | PwC U.S. Management Consulting |
Socializer | Real estate | CBRE Commercial Real Estate |
Innovator | Engineering | GE Aerospace Explore Engineering |
Innovator | Software engineering | Electronic Arts Software Engineering |
Supporter | Health care | Pfizer Molecule to Market |
Supporter | Human resources | GE Human Resources |
Supporter | Client services | Bloomberg Client Service |
Leader | Investment banking | JPMorgan Chase Investment Banking |
Leader | Financial services | Citi Finance |
Leader | Project management | CBRE Project Management |
Mind the Gap Between Skills and Your Personality
Your skills and your personality are two critical aspects of your career choices. Now that you have a better understanding of what jobs might be right for your personality, consider how those match up to where your strengths lie.
For example, maybe you’re a “supporter” — and your personality is caring, dependable, and kind — and you’ve always been good at math and have a love for numbers. While data analysis is a job that could work well for a “thinker,” that doesn’t mean you have to give up on your data analyst dreams. Instead, consider what kind of data analyst you might want to be. Since you have a helpful personality, maybe you want to be a data analyst at a mission-driven startup or a non-profit where your insights lead to helpful outcomes.
Your career options don’t need to fit into a single box. Instead, consider how different aspects of your identity — your natural skills, your personality, and your goals — can all fit into your potential dream roles.
Read Job Descriptions Carefully
Now that you know what kind of work is best for your personality, read job descriptions carefully to get a sense of what the day-to-day work is like.
Does the role require independent, detailed work? What about more collaborative projects and big-picture thinking? Understanding these details can help you imagine what the work environment is like and whether it’d be a good fit for you.
This habit is especially helpful when comparing roles, especially those with the same titles, to see how they function differently from one company to another. For example, when I was looking at various writing jobs, I knew I was goal-oriented and wanted a role where I could make a clear impact. I read job descriptions closely and found some writer job descriptions were strictly focused on writing output, while others focused on success metrics and outcomes. The latter were the positions I ended up applying for.
You increase your chances of landing a role that fits your personality by getting a better understanding of how that specific role works at the company.
Talk to People in Different Career Paths
Informational interviews are a great way to learn exactly how roles function within certain career paths and companies. During these interviews, don’t shy away from asking questions about the person’s day-to-day role and who they work with. No detail is too small when finding a job that matches your personality type!
Personality Career Quiz: The Bottom Line
When you’re first thinking about what career is right for you, you may focus entirely on your skills and what you like to do. However, there’s a third thing you should consider: your personality.
Your personality dictates how and where you operate best. You might like working in loud, collaborative environments with lots of shared projects, or, you might prefer goal-oriented, focused work. Understanding these factors can help you find a job where you’ll not just survive, but thrive.
The Forage personality career quiz is unlike other career quizzes because we’re not trying to stump you — instead, our quiz is simple, straightforward, and asks real, everyday questions to get to the bottom of your personality.
We want more students to not just find careers that they’re good at, but ones they love. Helping connect your personality to potential career paths is just the start.
Looking for more career insights? Try more of our free career quizzes: